Ain't nothing but a 16-bit guy in a High Def World

LONG BLOG

As we all know there are a lot of movie game tie-ins and the Game Boy did have its fair share, I've already covered one before and I'm gonna cover a few more before this 20 days is over (at least 3 more I would say). Anyway it always seems to be the easy trend to just make a generic platform game, chuck a license on it and then call it a day, and more or less thats what I would say have been done with our next game. A game that you really shouldn't ever, no matter how much it pleads or begs, play after midnight.

I owe a lot of my early Game Boy games to second hand stores. A good deal of my Game Boy games we picked up used at places like Cash Converters or maybe the the Sunday markets. Gremlins 2 was one of those games. I got it from the second hand shop just the game on one of those awesome little cases all old Game Boy games used to come in (my god I miss those things). I was a fan of the movie, I mean who wasn't Gizmo was the most awesomly cute thing ever made, who honestly was not in love with the little guy. As with most movie games it follows the plot and by that I mean it has stages themed around various parts of the movie (Movie Studio, Lab and so on). A few character cameos here and there and then lots of mice and bats and boxes with punching gloves that where everywhere in the film (in those scenes they had to cut out of course), End of level bosses are the main special gremlins that where in the film, like the Vegetable, Electric, Spider, Bat Gremlins. Which make for somewhat interesting battles.

The game itself was a very very average platforming game. Not good, not bad, just average. The controls work well enough, not too stiff, not too floaty, just right. As Gizmo you jump through stages avoiding the usual platforming terrors, spikes, pits, enemies and so on. You weapon of choice is a pencil which you'll find at the start of the levels. There are various power ups in the stage, like a little box you can get into thats more or less works likes the Star in Mario Bros. The spirtes look ok and its easy to tell what things are, the background and stages seem rather bland and all look the same, again nothing special. Theres nothing wrong with the game per say, just not much right about it either. Its one of those movie games that is just going to sell based on the franchise its attached to, not because its an overly good game. Its something we see all the time and something that happened a lot with the Game Boy. You wish they would of put some effort into this game, like the NES Gremlins 2 game and maybe I would have something awesome to talk about, not just another 2d movie tie in platformer.

Heres the sad part about the game, I never got to play much of it, I lost it pretty early on. Me and my brother were in the car one day while waiting for my dad (bit of backstory, my dad was an umpire for the Lower & Upper Great Southern Aussie Rules Football leagues and my brother and I would usually go with him to towns when he was umpiring, I saw a lot of the state this way), and I was going through my Game Boy games looking for the next one to play. I saw Gremlins 2 falling into the crack of the car seat between where the back would come down so you could go into the boot of the car. I tried to get it but I pushed it down further and every attempt seemed to push it further and further away until it was gone. And from there it was lost forever, I never seemed to find it and to this day I will never know what happened to it. Perhaps its still sitting in my dads old Ford waiting for some lucky kid to pull it out and give it a play.

So this game continues the tradition of movie tie-ins. Its not a great game but its not an overly bad game, its just a very average game and honestly on a system that has as many awesome games as the Game Boy does, average just doesn't cut it I'm afraid. Part of me wishes I had of played the game to completion, maybe after the second stage boss it gets secretly awesome, or maybe it just gets harder and more frustrating. I'm thinkin the latter would most likely be the case.

Hey Hey, abit more about myself I guess, I've been playing games since as long as I can recall, my first love was my C64 and have many fond memories of it such as Jumpman, Archon, Aliens, Mario bros & some weird game involving Camels. After that int he early 90's I got my first real taste of Nintendo with the Game Boy and have been hooked ever since. I'm a loyal Nintendo fanboy through and through and while I may hate them sometimes I'll always return because damit because thats just how a fanboy is meant to be. I would consider myself more of a handheld gamer then anything. I enjoy consoles and all but I just find it easier to lay back and get out my DSi or one of my various Game Boys for some awesome Handheld gaming fun.